Ghost of the Past
by owluvr
Summary: Helena Ravenclaw never made the same mistake twice.


A/N-So this is for the Hurdles 2000+ where you have to write something you don't write that often. So I'm writing Founders. This is also for the Pairing Diversity Boot Camp with the prompt impetuous with Helena Ravenclaw/Bloody Baron, and for ladyoftheknightley's School Subjects Challenge with Charms.

Helena Ravenclaw _never _made the same mistake twice. She was a smart person, a clever person that always learned from her mistakes. Once she made a mistake, she learned from it and never made that mistake again. It was something she'd noticed about herself.

Helena was also good at lying. Too good, in fact. She could persuade anyone of anything. She just had that sort of sweet face that always managed to make people think that she was telling the truth. Of course, it also helped that her mother was Rowena Ravenclaw, who was incredibly smart, so everyone figured Helena had to be smart too. Helena was very smart: incredibly smart actually. She was so smart that she could spin a lie out of nothing and in five seconds you would be scared for your life.

She even managed somehow to get the Sorting Hat to put her into Ravenclaw. Everyone was expecting _perfectly sweet _little Helena Ravenclaw to be in her mother's house. Helena was used to living up to people expectations. However, it didn't mean that she liked it. People started expecting things out of her the day that she was born. She had to be prettier than her mother, smarter than her mother, stronger than her mother, just plain _better _than her mother. When she was little, she shared these expectations with her mother.

"Everyone expects me to be this perfect person that I'm not!" Helena would whine. Her mother would sigh.

"I know it's a lot, Helena, but you're just going to have to deal with it the best you can and be the best you that _you _can be," her mother would respond, "When I was little…" Helena groaned and flopped onto her back and tried to drown out the sound of her mother's childhood.

Helena didn't think she was pretty. She had a very plain face, and very plain brown eyes. Her hair always hung down loose and it went just below her shoulders. Adela, who was the prettiest girl in the grade in Helena's opinion, had brown hair just like Helena's, and blue eyes just like Helena's. The only difference (in Helena's opinion) was that Adela's hair went all the way down to the floor and trailed behind her. Helena thought she looked beautiful, like a bride at a wedding. And everyone always commented on how pretty, how _beautiful _a bride looked at her wedding, just like how _beautiful _people said that Adela looked. When she was eleven, she asked her mother if she could wear her hair like that.

"Mummy, can I wear my hair longer?" she asked.

"How much longer," her mother said, pursing her lips.

"To the floor," she replied.

"Oh no," Rowena replied, laughing, "That's not practical, Helena. You want to be practical. You don't want hair like that."

_Yes I do! _Helena wanted to scream, _I want hair like Adela's! I want to be beautiful. _

"Yes mummy," she replied. Once her mother left the room, tears started to stream from Helena's blue eyes.

"I'll never be beautiful," she muttered. No one was listening.

-X-

Practical was a big part of Helena's life. Her mother always told her that things had to be practical, or this was the _practical _way to do things, or you should do your homework now, because that would be _practical_. Needless to say, _practical _was probably Helena's _least _favorite word. She hated it. Sometimes she didn't want to always be _practical. _

"I want to have fun!" she complained when she was little, "I don't want to be practical!"

"Every young lady has to be practical," her mother scolded, "You know that."

Helena didn't. All she knew was that she didn't want to be _practical._

-X-

As she got older, she stopped questioning things. She started acting like she always knew the answer to _everything _and that she was perfect at _everything. _And Helena was indeed, brilliant, as she was a Ravenclaw after all.

And, if she ever didn't know the answer, she would lie.

She lied quite often. It wasn't always about school. Helena was curious, she was restless, so she would speed her time exploring the castle. She found every secret passageway out of the castle, found every secret room. No one would actually ever see her in the hallways as she made her way to class.

But she was okay with that. It wasn't like anyone was looking for her.

She even found a small tiny room, behind an empty portrait that she'd dubbed her "study". It had a bookshelf, and a desk. There was a small sofa in it. When she needed to get away from all the students in the library, she would sneak away to her study. And she would stay there and read, until her eyes were drooping, or her stomach was rumbling with hunger. Then she would sneak around to the kitchens, or back to her dormitory.

No one ever missed her while she was gone.

No one, not even her own mother, noticed when she disappeared for hours on end, sneaking around the castle. Once, as she was sneaking around, she heard a conversation between two students.

"Who's your new partner for Potions?" Adela asked her friend Cecily, who was _not _known for her brains.

"Helena Ravenclaw, I think," Cecily answered. Adela rolled her eyes.

"Cecily, there's no one named _Helena _Ravenclaw in this school. You're probably thinking of _Rowena _Ravenclaw," Adela said.

"Oh yeah, I guess I am," she said.

"I go paired with Gavin, he's so _dreamy_," Adela said, sighing.

"Isn't he a Slytherin?" Cecily asked.

"Yes," Adela said.

"But we have Potions with Ravenclaws…" Cecily said.

"Cecily, we _are _Ravenclaws," Adela said.

"Oh yeah…" she replied.

"How you got into Ravenclaw is beyond me," Adela muttered.

"I'm sorry," Cecily replied, though she had nothing to be sorry for. Adela acted as if she hadn't heard her, and went right back to talking about Gavin.

"And he's a _baron_," Adela continued, "So it's good that I was partnered with him. Could you imagine if I ended up _marrying _him? Imagine, me, marrying a _Baron_…" she continued, but Helena never paid attention.

_Of course he'll go for Adela_, Helena thought, _she's beautiful. She's perfect. Who wouldn't want to marry her?_

Even though she knew it was hopeless, Helena still wanted to know who this "Gavin" was exactly.

-X-

The next day, she was in Potions and she saw Adela sitting next to a boy with black hair and green eyes. Helena didn't think he was _that _good looking, but apparently Adela did. Adela always was better than her at everything, always beat her at everything. So Helena was going to win this boy before Adela did. She was going to get him to like her. She smiled across the room.

"Hi Cecily," she said when the other girl sat next to her.

"Hi," the girl said, blinking, "What's your name again? I forgot."

"Helena," she replied, smiling.

"It is Helena!" Cecily smiled, "Adela told me it that no one named Helena existed!"

"Oh," Helena said, pretending to be offended.

"No!" Cecily gasped, "I'm so sorry, don't tell Adela I told you that. She will be mad at me."

"I won't," Helena lied, "I don't even know her. Which one is Adela again?"

"The one sitting up there next to Gavin-you know Gavin right?"

"Oh yes," Helena replied, "Did you hear that he was engaged to Morgan?"

"He's engaged?" Cecily asked.

"Oh yes, although I hear the wedding will not take place for some time. Not until they graduated Hogwarts, at least," she replied.

"That's interesting," Cecily said.

"Now, how about starting Helena smiled sweetly. The first part of her plan was complete.

-X-

"Oh, I am so sorry!" Helena exclaimed the next day, after she had accidentally-on-purpose bumped into Gavin.

"It is alright," he replied. He helped her up and helped her pick up her books.

"Really, I'm so sorry," Helena said.

"It is fine," Gavin said, "What's your name, anyway?"

"Helena," she said, "What is yours?"

"Gavin," he replied.

"Well, I have to go," she said, "See you around, Gavin."

She felt his eyes on her as she walked away.

-X-

"Adela, he is engaged," Cecily told her.

"Well, too bad," Adela said, "I do not particularly care. I am much better than this…this…what was her name again?"

"Morgan," Cecily replied.

"This Morgan girl," Adela continued, "She and him will not _be _getting married, not as long as _I _have anything to do with it."

"But Adela-" Cecily started.

"I do not care, Cecily," Adela responded, "Come along."

-X-

It was Helena in fact, who won. Of course, it helped that before this, Adela did not even know who she was, so she did not know what she was going up against. But sure enough, soon after Helena talked to Gavin for the first time, he started to show signs of courting her.

Helena did _not _want to marry him, nor did she love him, she just wanted to be beat Adela at something for once in her life, and she had. She was ecstatic. But she was a little nervous. She did not want Gavin to court her, any more than she wanted to keep losing to Adela. She wanted to tell her mother, ask her for help, but her mother would tell her that she was not being _practical_, that she should just drop this matter altogether. She would not offer any advice that would help Helena in the slightest. There was also the fact, that Helena had long stopped going to her mother for answers, instead she would just figure them out herself.

She was on her own.

And try as she might, Helena could not figure out this conundrum.

She grew angrier. Her mother, her _perfect _mother would be able to figure this out in a second. All of the expectations that people used to have for her when she was little, she had never wanted to fulfill them, but now she did. She wanted to be prettier than her mother, cleverer than her mother. She wanted to be better than her mother.

Suddenly, she had the _perfect _idea. She would get away from Adela and Gavin, become cleverer than her mother, more _important_ than her mother.

So she formulated a plan.

-X-

"Mother," she said, "I just ran into Helga. She told me to tell you that there an emergency meeting, and that she wants you to come right away."

"One moment, Helena," Rowena said.

"Mother, this is _urgent_," Helena said.

"Alright, I am on my way," she left her office in a hurry. Helena ran into the back of her mother's study, where her mother's diadem was just sitting there, on a shelf. Helena reached out to touch the glass, but was stopped by a sweet musical voice that she recognized as her mother's.

"I am greater than God but more evil than the devil. The poor have me, the rich need me, and if you eat me, you will die. What am I?" the voice asked. _This was just like the password to the Ravenclaw Tower, _Helena thought; _Leave it my mother to think of something like this._

Helena thought hard about the riddle for a minute before responding, "Nothing."

"That is correct," her mother's voice said. Helena reached out and grabbed the diadem. Then, she ran from the room and out of the castle.

-X-

She journeyed to the forest of Albania, and resolved to stay there for the rest of her days. Her plan would be perfect. She got away from Gavin and Adela, and she had her mother's diadem, which made her cleverer than her mother. _And _she was gone; she had just disappeared, which meant that kids would probably remember her forever, as the Lost Girl. She liked that. Or even better…the Lost Lady. Helena was exactly what her mother said a young lady would be a responsible person capable of making decisions for her. She was responsible (she had been taking care of herself for several months) and she made decisions for herself (like taking the diadem for instance). Yet…why did she get the feeling that that wasn't what her mother meant at all?

She had survived out her for months. She had learned how to make a bow and arrow, and she had always been good at cooking. In all her months here, she had not seen any other people, and she wanted to keep it that way. But just in case, she had traps set up all around her camp that she was staying in, and had even hollowed out an old tree and put her mother's diadem in it, just to keep it safe.

Sometimes, she wondered what was happening at Hogwarts. How was her mother? How was Gavin? How was Adela? And what about Cecily? She knew she should not care, she had run _away _from them, but Helena had always been a curious person and could not help but wonder about the life she had left behind.

She had lost track of the months, all she knew was that it was early spring when she heard her first sign of other life.

"_Gavin?_" she gasped.

"Hello Helena," he said, "Lovely place you have." He said, looking at her various traps.

"Thank you," Helena said calmly, "Why are you here?"

"I'm looking for you, of course," he said, "I missed you."

"Alright then," Helena said, "Now you have found me. Please leave and never come back."

"Helena," he said, grabbing her arm as she walked away, "Your mother is dying."

"I do not care," Helena replied.

"You do not care?" he asked, shocked.

"No I do not," she said, "I ran away to get away from her, to get away from everyone. I have a new life now. What happens to her does not concern me at all."

"But she is your _mother_," Gavin exclaimed.

"No, she is _not_, I assure you," Helena replied.

"She asked me to find you, you know," Gavin said.

"I do not care," Helena replied.

"She wants to see you," he said.

"I do not care," Helena replied, "Now I have asked you several times to leave, and I am going to ask you again. Please leave."

"Not," he said, "Until you agree to come back with me."

"_No_," she replied and started to walk away again. Gavin grabbed her arm.

"Helena, I love you," he said, "Please come back with me."

"I do not _care_," Helena said, "I do not care! Just _leave_."

"Not until you agree to come back with me," he said. Helena drew out her arrow and aimed it at him.

"_Leave_," she ordered.

"Are you really going to do that?" he chuckled. She pulled back on her arrow, and he impetuously thrust his knife into her back. She screamed, he screamed, and then everything went black as she fell to the ground.

-X-

"…and that is it," Helena finished. The student, who had introduced himself as Tom, looked up at her.

"Is your mother's diadem still there?" he asked.

"I do not know," she replied. She certainly had not expected him to ask her this.

"But _you _are the only one who knows where it's hidden, and you've never taken it out?" he asked.

"No, I have not," she replied calmly. She was looking at Tom critically now. Maybe she should not have told him this. Tom got this odd glint in his eyes, and then nodded.

"Thank you for your help," he said, and walked off. Helena watched him go; regret swirling in around in her head.

She would never tell another student as much as she told him. That was a mistake.

-X- ` `

"Please: I need some help," the boy begged, "I need to know anything you can tell me about the lost diadem." He reminded her of the other student, the one who had come years before. But she had spent the last several decades regretting telling that boy _anything _about it. Helena Ravenclaw was a _Ravenclaw _and she was very smart. She never made the same mistake twice. So instead, she lied. Helena was particularly good at lying.

She looked down at the boy. He was young, seventeen or eighteen maybe. She remembered when she was that young. And that's when she saw the scar. It peeked out from under his untidy hair. _He's Harry Potter_, she thought.

She saw the same desperation in his eyes that she had felt when she was about his age. And what had she done? She'd run away. But he was different. Here he was, fighting. He, like her, wanted the diadem. But he, unlike her, wanted it because he actually wanted to make a difference.

"I stole the diadem from my mother," she told him quietly. He looked at her in shock, the hope starting to return to his face.

Helena never made the same mistake twice.

-X-


End file.
